Shakharibazar tragedy spotlights inept handling of civic responsibilities

Yet we never learned our lessons, never had the positive mindset to tackle these catastrophes. In any case we were inured to the sight of human suffering and death. And so disaster after disaster diminished and devastated us. But the consumerist Bangladesh with the inept administration running the country was too busy living its life to be unduly bothered by the horrifying death tolls. Shockingly, after the launch disaster on the river Meghna last May when about 100 men, women, and children met watery death, disaster came calling again in the heart of the city.

A Shakharibazar building collapse on June 9, claiming nineteen lives, including the one who died in the hospital on June 18 before the watchful eyes of the citizens and public service organisations like the RAJUK, DCC, and the administration in general. Three top floors of the building No. 81 at Shakharizabar, home to 12 families, marked as extremely vulnerable, and some shops propped up, were crushed like paper cups. Danger still lurks in the area with apprehension of another disaster waiting to happen any moment. Apart from the building that collapsed, it is now learnt from the DCC source that there are 81 vulnerable buildings in the Shakharibazar area about 200 years old that may be razed to ground any moment, not by any natural calamity but because of human failings and indifference.

The DCC source indicated that they sent notices to all the owners including the owner of the collapsed building as early as 2001. RAJUK authorities also claimed that they had taken similar action fifteen days ago. But the owners did not comply with the DCC notice. DCC, according to ordinance-1983, is empowered to destroy any vulnerable building. In the present case there was no court case forcing DCC to stall such demolition job, yet they failed, causing so many loss of lives.

On the other hand, RAJUK officials allowed the owners of the building no. 80, next plot to the collapsed building, to build up a six storey structure without considering the fate of the adjacent building, which, according to experts was the main reason for the collapse. DCC and RAJUK sources apart, government's intelligence agency on the basis of the tenant-owner versions, had identified 572 buildings in three thanas of old Dhaka as most vulnerable. In the Shakharibazar area, out of 142 buildings, about 100 buildings have been found to be extremely vulnerable.

It is now apparent that as DCC and RAJUK continue passing the buck, people in the area will continue to die. They will die over and over, in incident after incident, until we recognise that the machinery looking after such lapses is now so venal, so apathetic, so inhuman, that it could not care less. We also need to realise that until all of us -- get up and say enough is enough, nothing is going to change. It was a disaster waiting to happen. It is like a bad play endlessly repeated. Residents of the old city must wake up to the impending disaster that may engulf them at any time in the future. As members of conscious citizenry, it should be as much our mission, if we want things to change.

Amid the welter of accusations and counter accusations, the problem that exposes people to death and destruction seems to have got buried under the debris and rubble. To prevent recurrence of such tragic incidents in future, officials guilty of neglecting their mandatory obligations must be booked. And sure enough, until this is done, justice will not have been done, and recurrence stopped. And left unaddressed, there could be more deaths that must be avoided. Evidently, if the DCC or RAJUK officials had acted as per ordinance, by demolishing the extremely vulnerable buildings, nobody would have died. The residents or owners of the buildings, because of the multiplicity of ownership title and family feud, could hardly do the demolition job themselves.

We need to admit that our administration or the concerned officials get away with these things because of our apathy. If old Dhaka residents had reacted to the Shakharibazar tragedy through protests and rallies, the concerned authority would have taken the appropriate measures. How many more tragedies is going to take for us to wake up to the truth that the fate of the Shakharibazar families has to be our fate as well?

The DCC or RAJUK, as the case may be, must draw a master plan for these vulnerable buildings encompassing the old Dhaka city, and easy bank loans must be made available to the residents for construction of houses in the interest of preventing further tragedies. It is less likely that they will defraud the banks and fly away with the loans issued to them than our so-called big business groups. People believe if lives are saved and a somewhat decent accomodation is available, the residents or owners have hardly anything to object to. It is quite usual that there would be lot of meetings, discussions, and even plans will be prepared, and then everything will fizzle out as days, weeks, or months elapse until another such tragedy strikes this risky zone.

It is heartening to learn that Dhaka city Mayor Sadek Hossain Khoka, who actually owns the responsibility for such demolition as well as for drawing master plan and reconstruction job, has shown his grit to draw up a master plan and have it approved by the concerned ministry. The Mayor sounded sincere and certainly seems to be doing more than his predecessors in the past decade, but surely, if he confines his activities to demolishing buildings only, he will never get the sort of delighted response. As it happens in such cases, interest groups moving in the corridors of power might put their dirty hands in the project claiming fake ownership title of the land that might doom a noble mission to failure.

One tends to believe that neither DCC nor RAJUK has understood the enormity of the problem and the appalling living conditions the old Dhaka residents face, like the maze of narrow lanes other than decrepit and dingy buildings with no running water and other amenities of life. In such a situation, it was only desirable that the Mayor recognised the fact that solution lay not in demolition, but in planned construction. And only if these two activities happen side by side will they win the support and delighted response of the people.

Expectedly at the present size of migration to Dhaka city, and urban centres, Bangladesh's urban population would have more than doubled in 20 years. However, much we talk about rural development, strengthening of villages, and alleviation of rural poverty, stopping migration to cities seems to be a daunting job. Because the basic ingredients towards achieving the goal, namely literacy, effective schooling for children, health and sanitation programmes, motorable roads and, most important of all, electricity in every house are still a distant dream. Pouring money into villages will not make them bloom or flow with milk and honey. It needs a team of visionary leaders, a committed bureaucracy, and an enlightened citizenry imbued with zeal and motivation to make such grand dream a success.

What we need more than anything else from the DCC or RAJUK is a master plan that would replace such decrepit, dingy buildings and slums with decent, low-cost housing. There are enough talented architects in the country who can put this together in months (not years), and only when we have a concrete model for urban renewal should demolition of such decrepit buildings begin or carry some meaning. With memories of Jagannath Hall building collapse in 1985 that claimed 43 precious lives, building crash in Sabujbag area that took 2 lives last year, and another Shakharibazar building collapse in 2001 injuring 10 persons fresh in the mind of the people, the administration can ill-afford to fight shy of such momentous problems involving life and death of a sizable section of the citizenry.

The capital city Dhaka, beautiful not so long ago, is today the ugliest and most polluted city in the world. It can be saved as other cities have been. Singapore being a remarkable example of what can be done if there is a will to do something constructive. Our ministers and other high-ups in the officialdom must realise that Singapore sprang up from the ruins of the Second World War by sheer determination of its leaders and active participation of its people. We have to understand the importance of construction and not just demolition.

Undeniably true, cities shape civilisations and are in turn shaped by them. Few urban centres in the country are known for their urban discipline. Shockingly, of late norms of organised civic life have been violated with impunity. Illegal encroachments and unauthorised constructions, as were the case in Shakharibazar and on the banks of Buriganga have become rampant. The crisis of governance is particularly marked at the municipal level. Whereas urban governance demands a coherent, coordinated and vibrant setup, our capital city including other urban centres have been saddled with fragmented, fractured and imbecile authorities, incapable of tackling core problems.

Expectedly, after liberation in 1971, the country should have evolved a clear urban vision which should have been part of an equally clear national vision. Unfortunately those at the helm did not show any real ingenuity. They became more imitative than creative. They failed to regenerate the mind of the citizenry. This means that development of the urban centres has suffered at the hands of the policy makers. So unless we change the contours of our mindscape, the urban landscape will continue to decay, and tragedies like the one in Shakhari-bazar that exacted an enormous price will endlessly be repeated.

Md. Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.